Bitwise: Why are top-tier investors pouring huge bets on new public chains? The answer lies in these three points

Original Title: Canton, Arc, and Tempo: Three Lessons About Crypto

Original Author: Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise
Original Compilation: Saoirse, Foresight News

Industry news often pours in in clusters. When this kind of moment arrives, it’s worth paying close attention, because it certainly means major trends are unfolding behind it.

Just this Monday, stablecoin issuer Circle officially announced that Arc, its brand-new blockchain project, has completed a $222 million funding round, with a total valuation of $3 billion. The investor lineup is stacked with top-tier institutions, including BlackRock, Apollo Funds, and the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.

And the day before, another emerging blockchain, Canton Network, saw funding news from its developer, Digital Asset: led by a16z, raising $300 million at a $2 billion valuation.

Not to be left out, Stripe’s Tempo blockchain has already been running ahead in the race for some time: at the end of last year, it completed a $500 million funding round with a valuation as high as $5 billion, and it has since continued to announce strategic partnerships with companies such as DoorDash and Visa.

Arc, Canton, and Tempo—these three public chains—are all built specifically for stablecoin and asset tokenization use cases. This wave of concentrated fundraising has also prompted me to summarize three crucial takeaways for the crypto industry.

Capital always follows regulatory legislation

All of the above multi-hundred-million-dollar financings occurred after the U.S. Congress passed the “Genius Act” in July 2025.

I’ve always believed that before a bill becomes law, the sluggish and low-energy pace of U.S. crypto legislation directly dampens the industry’s investment enthusiasm; major institutions are unwilling to rashly roll out business or build public-chain infrastructure when the regulatory outlook is still unclear. But now that regulation is becoming clearer, the industry landscape is starting to change.

No one can be certain whether, without the “Genius Act” providing cover, these projects could maintain their current valuations and complete large-scale fundraising. However, one thing is certain: clear regulation has absolutely played a key role in boosting momentum.

For investors, the most thought-provoking question is: if the crypto industry’s comprehensive market structure bill, the “Clarity Act,” is successfully passed by Congress, how large an opportunity for the industry will it unlock?

The “Clarity Act” has a much wider scope than the “Genius Act,” and the final bill text has not yet been finalized, so it’s not possible to accurately predict the impact range for now. But what can be determined is that the asset tokenization track and compliant financial infrastructure will be the biggest beneficiaries. I also hope that the final version of the bill will benefit areas such as decentralized finance and innovative token design—though the specifics still need to wait for the official text to be released. The “Clarity Act” is worth everyone continuing to track.

Privacy protection may become a phenomenon-level core application

Arc, Canton, and Tempo share a common feature—this is also their biggest difference from Ethereum and Solana: all three public chains natively have built-in private transaction functions.

As crypto assets gradually integrate into mainstream business scenarios, this design logic fits real-world needs very well. The public transparency of a public blockchain was originally the foundation for building trust—but in business scenarios, it can instead become a weakness.

Companies don’t want every incomplete transaction to be publicly visible across the entire network, and office workers don’t want their salary transaction records to be casually searchable by anyone through a blockchain explorer. At that point, public transparency is no longer an advantage—it becomes a real pain point.

Even the most steadfast supporters of blockchain transparency have to admit: the business world inherently needs a certain degree of privacy and information confidentiality. These three emerging public chains pre-embed privacy capabilities into their core design from the ground up, precisely hitting the real needs of traditional institutions. And the recent rounds of high-value fundraising further prove that this track’s direction is absolutely correct.

Traditional giants officially enter the field, intensifying competition for the track

The most special thing about Arc, Canton, and Tempo is that they are backed by top-tier enterprises and financial institutions.

· Arc is led and developed by Circle, a publicly listed company;

· Canton’s investors include Wall Street giants such as Goldman Sachs, Citadel, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Nasdaq, BNY Mellon, S&P Global, Virtu, and others;

· Tempo is jointly built by payments giant Stripe and crypto venture Paradigm. Anthropic, Deutsche Bank, Revolut, Shopify, Visa, and OpenAI have all participated in the project’s architecture design.

By contrast, older, well-established public chains are entirely different: Ethereum was initiated and founded by a 19-year-old school dropout on Bitcoin forums, while Solana was conceived from a flash of inspiration by a Qualcomm engineer.

Of course, this doesn’t mean traditional giants will necessarily win. In fact, I personally have a longer-term preference for crypto-native projects. But it’s undeniable that the entry of banks and large technology companies will bring more substantial capital, stronger execution power, and more professional standardized operations.

Peer competition and cooperation drive growth. I believe that under the dual pressures of both giants and native projects, the pace of innovation and the boundaries of development across the entire crypto industry will be further broadened.

After all, steel sharpens steel; competition and cooperation can generate progress.

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